


i drink too much coffee (and think of you often)

by ravensarefree



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, F/M, Witchcraft, amy is amy rosa's rosa, gina's a witch, jake is bi w/ adhd, no cops here acab all the way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26455300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravensarefree/pseuds/ravensarefree
Summary: Gina’s a motherfucking witch.In retrospect it makes sense. No one goes through middle school and still has self-esteem. While everyone else (Jake) is still processing their residual damage from being queer and neurodivergent and weird, Gina has fully moved onto social media stardom and mattress sponsorships for her advice podcast.
Relationships: Charles Boyle/Rosa Diaz (Unrequited), Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago, Rosa Diaz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18
Collections: Summer 2020 Fic Exchange





	i drink too much coffee (and think of you often)

1\. Gina’s a motherfucking witch.

In retrospect it makes sense. No one goes through middle school and still has self-esteem. While everyone else (Jake) is still processing their residual damage from being queer and neurodivergent and weird, Gina has fully moved onto social media stardom and mattress sponsorships for her advice podcast,  _ Lettuce Help. _

He says as much to Boyle, steaming milk with one hand and picking out lo-fi beats with the other. The punk they play at full volume to keep out loitering customers during the morning rush has all but faded, leaving him almost nothing to do for a couple of hours.

“Small coffee, black, and a large coffee, two extra shots.”

Jake turns to look at the voice, strident and demanding, and almost smacks his head directly into her motorcycle helmet. Boyle looks stunned and halfway to fantasy.

“Legally, I don’t think we’re allowed to do that, because of heart attack reasons. Name’s Peralta. Jake Peralta. That’s Boyle, my partner.”

The woman smirked at Boyle. Tattooed vines under her black tank wrapped their way from her fingertips to her neck, disappearing into her hair. There were other, smaller pieces showing, threaded between the vines, including a tiny Bart Simpson shaped like a gummy bear.

Diaz noticed him looking. “My partner Santiago did ‘em. We just opened up across the street, you should come check it out.” She handed Jake a glossy grey business card, before walking up to the counter and snapping in Boyle’ face. 

Boyle was still daydreaming.

She sighed.

Turning to Jake, Diaz said “Fine. I’d like a small black coffee and the largest, most caffeine dense thing on this menu.”

Hopping behind the counter and retying his apron, Jake grimaced. “Okay, but it will not taste good and you can’t sue us. Your total’s $9.73, black coffee and double mocha triple espresso with oat milk and a caffeine packet coming right up.”

Diaz swiped her card and put her earbuds in, resting her motorcycle helmet on a table. Jake waits exactly 0.3 seconds before kicking Boyle in the shin and startling him out of his reverie. Boyle startled and flailed, nearly falling over.

“Go talk to her!” Jake mimed.

“She would murder me instantly.” Boyle mimed back.

Jake finished both drinks and shoved them into Boyle’ hands. “Go,” he said, practically pushing him across the counter and straight into Rosa. She looked at Boyle’ hopeful expression, then grabbed the to-go cups from him. 

“Hey, Jake,” Rosa called across the shop. “You should come to our shop’s opening, maybe get some flash. You and Boyle should come, meet Santiago and my girlfriend. You might like ‘em.”

Later, when Jake calls Gina, she tells him about a jar she put together for new beginnings.

2\. Jake almost forgets about the tattoo shop’s opening. 

Between the menu upgrades, Halloween coming up, and the stress of dealing with whatever the fuck Boyle’s doing, he completely blanks. He would have missed it altogether if Boyle handed closed up early one Saturday and tossed him his jacket (leather, vintage, coolest fucking thing he owns) and a ticket. 

“Oh.” Jake says. “I was gonna go take a nap.”

“Jakey! You have to come with me. If you’re not there, I will say something stupid and Rosa will try to behead me with her axe. She keeps one in her purse, I’ve seen it. Also, you’re my best friend and I will not let you leave me.”

Jake sighed. Then he sighed again. Then he pulled and downed an espresso shot, smacked himself, put his jacket on, and crossed the street with Boyle at his side. 

The tattoo parlor was loud and cheerful, with large windows and plants tucked into every nook and cranny. There was a cat half asleep under a chair, lazily glaring at anyone that came close, and the tattoo chairs were covered in printed old vinyls; one with license plates, another with sunflowers, and a third covered in tarot cards. Up front, there was an old counter with several large binders and scrapbooks. Jake picked one at random, shoving one hand in his pocket and flipping through with the other. Pages upon pages of tattoo designs - flash, he remembered Rosa saying - stared back at him. He didn’t know much about art, but the pieces were bold and colorful, strong black lines and saturated colors that depicted everything from cowboys to the four horseman to sexually explicit fruit.

“See something you like?” A voice from behind him said, and Jake jumped half a foot in the air, knocking a stack of loose paper and binders onto the floor. He turns around to pick them up and bumps straight into the person behind, pushing both of them onto the floor.

“Holy motherfucking shit, I am so sorry-” he starts, and then he looks up.

The woman across from him is laughing. 

She’s got warm brown skin and black hair that falls right under her shoulders, accentuating the lavender sprigs tattooed on her collarbones and the anatomically correct heart peeking out of her t-shirt.

She is very, very, pretty. Jake is immediately smitten.

“Don’t even worry about it.” She says, getting up and extending her hand out to him. He grabs it, ignoring the way his heartbeat picks up and his cheeks go red. “I’m Amy Santiago, co-owner of this place. I think you were looking at some of my work before I interrupted you?”

Jake grabs it like the lifeline it is. “I like the colors and the lines and stuff. I don’t have any tattoos but they seem dope.”

“Ah, a virgin.”

Jake splutters. 

“A what?”

The woman - Santiago, he realizes, probably the partner Rosa had talked about before - smiles at him, in a way that makes him realize that she’s laughing with him, and at him a little. 

“A tattoo virgin. You’ve never been tattooed before. I’m not sure who came up with that, but tattooers have a sense of humor that is unparalleled.”

“Cool, cool, cool, cool.” Jake says, feeling like a dumbass.

“God, I haven’t even introduced myself yet. I’m Amy Santiago, co-owner of this fine establishment.”

She reaches out her hand to shake his and Jake feels butterflies in his stomach; he hasn’t had this feeling since he was young, since he made Finn Barry smile at him across the class sophomore year or asked Tessa Morales to senior prom. He’s thirty something now, the respected owner of a small business, and he thought he’d grown out of crushes.

He shakes her hand and says “Jake Peralta. I co-own the coffee shop across the street with Charles, my best friend. He does all the food stuff and I reel him in when he gets too experimental.”

“Experimental?” Amy tilts her head at him.

“A couple weeks ago he pitched me this Indonesian drink that’s a cup of black coffee with a hot coal in it. Never mind that we would get sued like crazy, I don’t even know how we’d get hot coals.”

Amy laughs again, and this time the bright studio lights hit her eyes at just the right angle to make the go warm and liquid.

“It’s not all bad,” Jake treks on, trying to make her smile again. ‘I did some research into Indonesian coffee afterwards, and we offer Kopi Jahe now. It’s gingery coffee sweetened with palm sugar, perfect for the holidays.”

She giggles a little, tucking her hair behind both ears at the same time. “I’ll have to try that sometime.”

Jake smiles back, fidgeting with his hair and smoothing it back. “You should.”

They just look at each other for a second, until Charles’ loud laugh breaks them out of their haze. 

“We should probably get this cleaned up.” Amy says, and Jake agrees. 

Amy brushes his shoulder, just the slightest bit of touch as she reaches past him to grab some of the art and put it back on the counter. He picks up some of the pieces around him and does the same, continuing to leaf through the sheets once all of them are back in their places. 

Jakes turns the page and stops. Looking back at him is an image of a man on a horse, hat pulled low to shade his face. Behind him is a desert that morphs into a city, mountains and cacti jostling for space between high rises. The colors are bold and warm, an orange setting sun peeking out of one corner and the border done in thick, sure, black, to look like rope. The words:

_ NO GLORY IN THE WEST  _ _  
_ _ NONE BACK HOME EITHER _ _  
_ circle the scene

Jake looks up to find Amy watching him, arms crossed. 

“Say, hypothetically, I would like to get something. How would I do that?”

Amy swings around to the other side of the counter and grabs a large, color-coded binder with all kinds of tabs sticking out, the kind he hasn’t seen since high school, “You would schedule a time, and then depending on the design, you could just come in once, or you and your artist would meet a couple of times for consults. You know, you never answered my question: did you see something you like?”

_ You _ , Jake’s brain supplies helpfully, and he holds up the piece of paper instead. “This?”   
Amy smiles again, wide and delighted, and Jake feels his heart flutter the same way it did when he saw her laughing. 

“That’s one of mine! I can pencil you in whenever you’re free, our schedule’s been kind pretty lax recently.”

Jake tells Amy his days off from the cafe, and they settle on a day a couple weeks from now, the day before Halloween. He’s dragged away by a very tipsy Boyle, drunk off the fancy beer they’d set out, but not before Amy pushed something into his hand. When he looks, it’s a business card with her number written on the back.

He stops at Gina’s the next morning and grabs a couple of books she’d promised to lend him. When he finishes one, he notices a love sigil drawn on the back pages, right where his palm had been.

3\. Jake gets a tattoo

“Pumpkin spice is so overrated. So overrated. Companies are charging you $2.50 extra to stir some nutmeg and cinnamon into a latte. There’s no pumpkin in pumpkin spice! You’re being lied to!”

Jake can’t help but laugh. Boyle goes on this exact rant every year, and every year he inevitably concedes, because

  1. Pumpkin spice tastes good, it’s why people like it
  2. It’s labeled as “Autumn Spice” on their menu, so they’ve never claimed there’s actual pumpkin in it
  3. They make a fortune every year selling PSLs for fifty cents less than the Starbucks down the street does. 



It’s the day before Halloween and the shop is fully in the spooky season spirit. There’s orange - and - black crepe paper twisted together and hung around the shop, interspersed with little paper or cardboard cut-outs of ghosts or black cats or whatever else Jake found at the dollar store. He’d been too busy to go all out this year, but at least the animatronic skeleton with a Jack Skellington outfit and a bucket of candy they put out every year had made it. 

As it gets darker and darker outside, the steady stream of people inside the shop dwindles until it’s finally 6pm and Jake can lock the doors. He does the dishes as fast as he can, while Boyle mops and wipes down tables impatiently. At 6:30 sharp Jake heads across the street to the shop and Boyle pulls his car out of the tiny parking lot, mumbling his goodbyes and struggling to open the doors of his ancient Honda.

Jake checks his phone again while waiting outside of the shop. He wants to be a few minutes late, but not too much, just to prove that he’s cool. He has a tray with Rosa’s, Amy’s, and his drinks on it; one of the women had been by at least once a day since the first time and he knows their drinks by heart.

His phone chimes.

_ Amy: Come inside, dumbass. I can see you standing there. It’s too cold to be fashionably late. _

_ jakeeeeeeeee: okie _

He steps inside and shudders in the warmer air. Amy looks up at the jingle of the bell hanging above the door, then gives him a warm smile. Her hands are smeared in ink, presumably from a day of drawing and tattooing, and for a moment, Jake just looks at her hands; the tendons and veins, the tawny brown skin, the strength and skill that’s so obvious to anyone who knows her. He shakes his head a little and sets the drinks and food he brought on the counters, waiting for Amy to finish up her work. 

Rosa emerges from a back room he didn’t notice until now, carrying a couple boxes and blasting music through the large headphones around her neck. 

“Hey, Jake. That for me?” She says, pointing to the tray of drinks, and grabs hers once he nods. Looking at Amy, she says “You need anything? Carmen made dinner tonight, so I’m heading out after I finish sorting this box.”

“Don’t worry about it! Jake can help me with it,you should go home.”

Rosa sets down the box and does what looks like her attempt at a smile; a third smirk, a third grimace, and a third eyebrows.

Just as she leaves, he gets a text.

_ Unknown Number: if you hurt her i will tear each bone out of your ribcage and make corset with them _

_ Unknown Number: oh this is rosa _

_ jakeeeeeeeee: how did u get my nbr? _

She leaves him on read.

He looks up to find Amy putting away her art supplies. He goes over the stencil with her, both of them scrutinizing each detail until they both agree that it’s perfect. The stencil goes onto his calf without a hitch, Amy pausing to add a few lines and Jake refraining from breathing for most of it, scared he’ll mess it up.

The actual tattooing is nearly perfect as well. The gun hurts at first, but it fades into the background somewhere between her second “terrible date” story and his (slightly dramamtized) Halloween Heist tales. At one point Jake starts playing his Spotify recommended, a mix of chill R&B and the emo or pop punk songs he was obsessed with in high school. Later, after all the linework is done, Amy has to stop tattooing because she’s laughing too hard at his rendition of “Blood” by MCR, complete with a strawberry kombucha she grabbed from the shop’s fridge. 

The tattoo finishes sometime before ten and both him and Amy have lapsed into a content silence. There’s something about just being with her that calms him, even when she’s (badly, don’t tell her said that) singing along to “Misery Business” and stabbing him with a needle repeatedly. By the time she wipes off the excess ink and blood, Jake is half-asleep.

They walk up to the register and Jake pays, both of them comfortable and relaxed and not wanting to leave just yet.

“So,” Jake says, helpfully, “I am so sorry if I’ve read this wrong, but would you like to grab dinner sometime?”

“Like a date?” Amy replies, half-smirking.

“For sure a date.”

“I’d like that very much.”

“Cool. Cool cool cool.”

As he gets in his car to drive home, he can’t stop himself from texting her a picture of the moon and stars he can see through his windshield. 

_ jakeeeeeeeee: not as pretty as u <3 _

_ Amy: If you get pulled over for texting and driving I will purge you from my memories. _

He blushes and laughs, pulling his car out of the parking lot and heading home. 

Gina texts him much later that night, after he’s fallen asleep. She sends him long paragraphs he’ll read come morning about her dreams and her cat and how the tarot cards she pulled for him said his life could only get better from here, but that’s for the morning. Right now, it’s time to rest. 

+I. date

A week and a half later, Jake meets Amy outside of the art museum they’d settled on. He’s fifteen minutes early, holding an experimental early holiday flavor, coffee with equal parts handmade vanilla bean and ginger syrup.

Amy’s sitting on the large marble steps of the museum, reading the complimentary pamphlet and holding their tickets. She’s wearing a black sundress with pink flowers scattered across it, and her hair down, blown back from the wind.

She sees him coming and smiles, tucking the pamphlet in her purse and trading him one of the tickets for the coffee cup. 

“Ready to go?” she asks. 

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Later, he makes lunch and invites Gina over. She arrives in a puff of glitter and drama, just  _ dying _ to tell him about the kids she teaches dance to (two of them made nationals!) and how many people like her “ticktocks.” He tells her about Boyle’s latest escapades and his new tattoo and Amy, all about Amy, in return.

Halfway through, he looks up to see her smiling at him. 

“What?”

Gina flaps her hands dismissively. “Nothing, nothing, just- I spent so long trying to help you find luck and love and happiness, and you did it all by yourself. Look at you, you’re so happy it’s streaming off of you. Hell, I’d know by your aura alone. It’s nice to see you like this. 

Jake smiles and ducks his head down, grabbing a bite and finishing his story. 

**Author's Note:**

> title from Patricia by Florence and the Machine  
> [here's some of the inspo](https://images.creativemarket.com/0.1.0/ps/1845137/910/607/m1/fpnw/wm0/lawless-font-001-.jpg?1478201160&s=7969d892b14e377dfc1ececeb0016fa6)  
> [for jake's tattoo](https://www.dhresource.com/0x0/f2/albu/g6/M00/29/A4/rBVaR1rbOWiABPGYAASIaOeSGF0496.jpg)


End file.
